On Friday, Google told The Washington Post that it was accelerating the implementation of end-to-end encryption between its data centers worldwide.

The search giant did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Ars.

“Google has data centers around the world, and when you have an e-mail stored, it’s stored at [something like] six data centers around the world,” Chris Soghoian, a privacy expert at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Ars. “Every single bit of data is now going to be encrypted, so now if the government is listening to that fiber, they won’t get that data.”

Of course, as Google and other companies are facing significant and varied vectors of attack from spy agencies—most notably the National Security Agency—this new defense tactic would probably only protect Google and its users from direct fiber taps, not any other forms of accessing user data and related keys.

“This is Google addressing the threat of interception one piece at a time,” Soghoian added.

The Post added that “Google officials declined to provide details on the cost of its new encryption efforts, the numbers of data centers involved, or the exact technology used,” and it added that “the project is likely to be completed soon, months ahead of the original schedule.”

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Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar